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Wow! It’s Wednesday! Month of Minefields: What Would YOU Do?

Not me, but I love this pic, and it came up when I did a "being good" search on flickr. Photo by Carmen Lucas
I think my main problem with the What Would Jesus Do movement is that it feels silly to me. What would Jesus do if he, like you, found out a co-worker was badmouthing him to the boss behind his back? Well, Jesus wouldn’t be working in an office because he’d be walking across the land, preaching the word of God and flossing miracles.
Well, how about if someone stole his car?
Jesus don’t have a car. Jesus walks. On water sometimes.
What if Jesus girlfriend cheated on him?
He’d take her back, b/c everybody’s Jesus’s girlfriend. He loves everybody. There’s nothing you can do that won’t have him taking the girlfriend back and then preaching the word of God to her all night long. I mean that literally.
What if Bernie Madoff ripped Jesus off?
Who cares? Jesus don’t believe in money. He believes in God. That’s why he flossed with miracles as opposed to camels and gold.
See what I mean? Every time I even think to ask, “Well, what would Jesus do?” I can’t help but think that Jesus wouldn’t even be in this situation in the first place, because he’s Jesus, and I’m me. And really when you think about it, his background was nothing like mine, so why would I stop to wonder what he’d do every time I found myself in an ethical jam?
When it comes to moral code-crafting, how should one go about this? Should we try to emulate our deities? Turn the other cheek like Jesus? Stay cool like Buddha? Play favorites like Athena?
As someone who suffers from an over-abundance of guilt, I do wish that there were a clear set of rules to being a good person. Right now, I’m kind of going with an ever-fluid mix of instinctual decency, Hippocratic oath (first, do no harm), and the Ten Commandments. And half the time, I still feel like I’m failing. But I wonder how others handle the monumental task of Being Good. Comments, seriously welcome.